Talk to the Team: Target Window
Many MMOs tailor the Target window based upon the type of the target (player, monster, etc) and the difficulty of the monster. Istaria cannot totally do this because the target window is sizable, but one thing we've discussed is the possibility of colorizing the border or background.
What do you think of this? What entities and colors would you think would be good if this were done?
Player = Dark Blue
Friendly NPC = Light Blue
Machine = Light Brown
Structure = Silver
Resource Node = Green
Furniture = Dark Brown
Monster (by keyword):
* Minion = Yellow
* Normal = Red
* Named = Silver
* Boss = Gold
Just some thoughts. What are yours?
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
Interesting idea, I quite like it. My only fear is that it'd look a little.. gaudy, I suppose.
I threw some concepts together. This is gold as a background:
http://i64.tinypic.com/1zy7ipg.jpg
Red as a background:
http://i66.tinypic.com/15ib1xg.jpg
Blue as a background (player blue):
http://i65.tinypic.com/2jg3udk.jpg
Though it'd be neat if changing colors of names of targets was possible:
http://i65.tinypic.com/2ues5s3.jpg
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
I much prefer color coding target window borders rather than backgrounds. Target windows are very readable with white text and black background. Some combinations of text color and background color may present challenges to more than a few players.
Knossos
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Knossos
I much prefer color coding target window borders rather than backgrounds. Target windows are very readable with white text and black background. Some combinations of text color and background color may present challenges to more than a few players.
Agree here!
Having background introduces trippy-ness with colours.
Plus it looks a lil..."gaudy" as rack puts it (*cough* awful *cough) - unless very weak colours are used and the window has shading throughout the window (compass with non-normal UI design is the closest i can think of off the top of my head to this) (one block of colour, i think most will agree...looks terrible :D) ...but that gives complications with transparency.
Alternatively you could make the window semi-transparent by default to make it look better, but that would make the default UI look kinda weird as it would be out of line with all other windows.
So easier just to have it as a border, imo.
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
Well... this is one of those things that I'll probably never notice regardless of what's done unless the opaque backgrounds are pushed through to change my target window from 100% transparent XD
Colored text or colored borders are probably the best way to go with that so it's not so gaudy... but then if I hadn't seen this, I probably wouldn't have ever noticed the change when it went through.
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
If this goes in I would prefer the color on border. I tend to use transparency on my windows from a little to a lot depending on which character I have logged in.
Please no on colored text. I don't hang out much with the people who love their colored chat fonts but half the time I can't read them as it blends into background or is so eye searing I don't even try to read it.
I also use the ray of light selection indicator which already color codes target types. Be nice if the two were somewhat consistent.
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
I would prefer the colour on the border. I do like my windows as transparent as possible, and I can see from the pictures provided that the solid colour windows is going to be a problem for me to read without starting a migraine. Just to bring this up, solid colour windows or just coloured text could also be problematic for those with colour blindness or colour sensititvity issues.
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
I wonder if gradients would be possible...
http://i67.tinypic.com/dfubeu.jpg
http://i65.tinypic.com/4v2ydx.jpg
Gives a splash of color and leaves the white-against-black text.
My only issue with borders is that they're quite literally 1 pixel wide and I highly doubt I'd notice any change in color in'em. My target window is 100% transparent all the time so I wouldn't even notice a background color change, but I highly doubt I'd notice a border color change unless it was a thicker border, too.
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
That seems like a good compromise - The gradient is in an out of the way location within the window and as such should not interfere with colourblindnes.
One question however would be that is will the engine support drawing changing gradients on the target window?
Re: Talk to the Team: Target Window
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Racktor
I wonder if gradients would be possible...
http://i67.tinypic.com/dfubeu.jpg
http://i65.tinypic.com/4v2ydx.jpg
Gives a splash of color and leaves the white-against-black text.
My only issue with borders is that they're quite literally 1 pixel wide and I highly doubt I'd notice any change in color in'em. My target window is 100% transparent all the time so I wouldn't even notice a background color change, but I highly doubt I'd notice a border color change unless it was a thicker border, too.
I like this. Since all the windows are individually customizable in their transparency, players could change the windows transparency to be able to see this, or leave theirs fully transparent if they don't like it. Also, the transparency setting could only affect the top black half of the gradient. Perhaps also add a checkbox for "Show target difficulty colors" to that windows' properties. So that it could be turned off if desired.
Colored text can be hard to read, and blends into some backgrounds, such as red would in fiery rift, isle of fire. This would also apply to the border.
For the colors, i'd use:
minions, normal: red
named: purple
boss: orange
